Cavities and Bar Meetings
by Shadow Sakura
Summary: Reid makes an appointment with his new dentist, and finds a little more than he bargained for. Reid/OC.


"Well, Kiddo, I hate to say it, but I'm going to have to drill on you a little bit today."

Spencer Reid closed his eyes and sighed. He had expected this, but that didn't mean he had to _like_ it. A few days ago he had started noticing sensitivity to hot and cold beverages on a tooth in his lower left jaw, and upon visiting the dentist on his first day off, he wasn't surprised to find out there was a cavity. Even after being tortured, shot in the leg, and infected with anthrax, the thought of someone actually changing the anatomy of his teeth made him shudder. He opened his eyes to look at his new dentist, Ashley Johnson, a gentleman in his sixties with a warm smile.

"How do you think this happened, Doctor? I brush after breakfast and lunch and floss every evening."

"It's most important to brush at nighttime, Kiddo. Your salivary glands only work at about 50 percent while you sleep, and that means all the food you've eaten during the day is still just sitting there. You said you drink your coffee with a lot of sugar? Do you do that all day?"

"Yes, sir. With my work schedule, I can be up at all hours of the day and night, and the coffee is what keeps me going."

"Well, plain coffee only stains your teeth, but that sugar will just eat away the enamel and cause cavities. You've only got one, right in between two of those teeth, but we've got to get it now before it turns into a root canal."

"Alright, Doctor. You said we can do it today?"

"Absolutely. Let me just get one of my hygienists in here to get you numb while we work up a treatment plan to determine what your insurance won't cover. This won't take long, Kiddo, don't you worry."

"Thank you, Doctor," Spencer breathed out. He attempted to relax back into the uncomfortable chair as the older man left and a brunette man around the genius's own age took the dentist's place.

"Hey, there. I'm Andrew, I'm going to be taking care of your anesthetic today. This cavity isn't that big, but I'm going to have to numb your whole lower left jaw."

"Right, because there's one nerve base at the back of the jaw with three extending nerves leading to the lower lip, the tongue, and the jaw itself," Spencer supplied. He had done well in anatomy.

"Yup, that's right. At least you know what to expect. Well, we actually have our massage therapist here today, would you like for her to give you a free hand massage while you get your work done?"

Spencer blinked. "…I'm sorry, what?"

Andrew chuckled behind his mask. "I'm being totally serious. Doc hires her to give patients free hand massages while they're here. It's really good for helping you relax; you should give it a shot."

Spencer thought for a moment. He'd never had any kind of massage before, but he _was _nervous… "Well, okay. I guess I can try it."

A light laugh sounded from his left. "Don't worry, sweetheart, if you don't like it, just tell me and I'll stop. Though, between you and me, I've never had anyone tell me to stop."

Looking over, Spencer saw the girl as she entered the room and pulled up the assistant's chair to the left side of where he sat. She was wearing a patchwork style scrub top with basic solid bottoms and sneakers, and her curly red hair was pulled to the side in a braid that reached her elbow. She wasn't traditionally pretty, and easily passed over at first glance, with a little too round face and a little too plump mouth and green eyes that were a little too small to be proportionate, but upon taking it all in together she had an interesting beauty to her, more adorable and child-like than anything. Her name tag read 'Chloe'.

"Good morning, Dr. Reid," she said with a smile. "Hopefully I'll make this situation a little easier for you today."

"Thank you," he said, surprised that he could return her smile with a small, albeit nervous, one of his own. "I'm not very fond of dentists, or doctors in general."

"I understand completely, hon ," she laughed. "I'm always telling people to relax, don't worry, take some deep breaths and you'll be fine, but once you get me in that chair I'm a whimpering mess of pathetic." He watched as she squirted some lotion onto her hands and rubbed them together briefly, before taking his own left hand and starting to work. He was surprised by how good it felt, and almost didn't hear the hygienist laughing.

"It's true," Andrew said. "I numbed her when she had her wisdom teeth pulled last year and it was a pain to get her to hold still."

"Yeah, well, sometimes I just can't help it. Your mouth is practically a 'no-no' place, other people shouldn't be messing around in there!"

Andrew and Spencer both laughed. "I had a bad experience as a child," Spencer offered. "The doctor was pretty rough pulling a baby tooth and I've always been scared going back." He wouldn't usually be so open with strangers, but they were professionals that dealt with this kind of thing regularly.

"Unfortunately, we see that a lot," Chloe said, nodding her head solemnly. "With any luck, we can make it a little bit better for you and a little easier for you to come see us regularly from now on." Spencer nodded, closing his eyes and focusing on her skilled hands working the muscles in his wrist. He felt himself tense slightly as Andrew told him to open his mouth, but the discomfort was certainly lessened with Chloe doing her job.

* * *

><p>A few days later, the BAU had gathered at a local bar to celebrate a successful case. A series of kidnappings had occurred locally, and it had turned out to be a child pornography ring. They had been able to rescue all of the children with minimal physical damage done and zero lives lost. It was definitely a cause for celebration.<p>

"Hey Reid, that girl over there has been staring at you for like ten minutes. I think she's totally interested, you should talk to her!" Penelope elbowed the young genius in the side, pointing across the bar. "Blue and pink dress, green vest, brown boots, red hair, really weird kind of pretty? See her?"

Following the line of her pointing, Reid saw the girl leaning against the bar. She smiled and waved, mouthing 'Remember me?'. Reid waved back, taking in the familiar face.

"Her, uh, her name's Chloe. She works in my dentist's office. She was there when I got that filling done the other day." Spencer took a sip of his drink; beer wasn't his favorite, but he didn't' mind the occasional bottle.

"You already know her and you haven't made a move yet?" Emily asked. "Look at her, she definitely wants you to go over there! Go buy her a drink!"

"Guys, I barely know her. I met her once, she gave me a hand massage and that was it."

"She gave you a what?" Rossi demanded, stopping with his bottle midway to his lips.

"A hand massage! She's a massage therapist, she works in the office giving hand massages to patients. It's her job!" His team laughed at his desperate explanation. "Look, if I go say hello and show you all that she's clearly not interested, will you leave it be?"

"Yes!" Penelope cried, practically shoving him out of his chair, while the rest of the team looked on and laughed. Reid sighed and made his way to the bar, taking a seat next to her and trying to school his expression into one of nonchalance at seeing her.

"Well, hello, Dr. Reid," Chloe started with a laugh. "Fancy seeing you here – how's that filling treating you?"

"Really well, thanks," he answered, very aware of the six gazes trained on him from across the room. "And please, call me Spencer."

"Spencer, then," she said, smiling softly. "You're here with friends?" She nodded towards his table. Spencer smiled.

"Uh, yes, my team from work. We ended a case really well today, we came out to celebrate."

"I remember your paperwork said that you were for the federal government. What is it you do, exactly?" Chloe's face was open and curious, and she rested her elbow on the bar next to her, leaning in to listen.

"I uh, I'm a profiler for the FBI, the Behavioral Analysis Unit. We travel everywhere in the country, building psychological profiles to help identify and catch, uh, serial killers." He winced slightly when her jaw literally dropped.

"Wow, are you serious?" At his nod, Chloe whistled. "I can handle working with anyone's body, man, but the mind? All that psychological stuff? Yuck, gives me the shivers. More power to you, my friend, that must be a difficult job. It has to be terrifying sometimes, too, doesn't it?"

"It can get dangerous sometimes," he agreed. "But I work with the best team in the country, we take good care of each other and we have an extremely high success rate."

"That's amazing, Spencer. Wow, I can't believe you actually do that. And you're so young! How long have you been with the FBI?"

"Well, I'm 27, and I started the Academy when I was 21. I've been with the BAU since I finished. They, uh, they made a lot of special exceptions for me, saying they needed my intellect on the team." He ducked his head and blushed. He rarely spoke outright about his intelligence, but Chloe was actually showing signs of romantic interest and he had a feeling it would impress her.

"So you're a genius?"

"Well, yes. I have an IQ of 187, an eidetic memory, and I can read 20,000 words per minute."

Chloe shook her head. "I've heard of eidetic memories, but I didn't know they actually existed. And 20,000 words per minute? That's got to be amazing! I have so much trouble finding time to read, being able to read so much so quickly would be so helpful!"

Spencer laughed, glad he hadn't scared her away. "Yeah, it can be pretty useful. Hey, so, uh, what are you doing here? Are you by yourself?"

"Oh, no," Chloe said breezily. "I'm here with Andrew, the hygienist who numbed you? I'm just waiting for him to finish so we can go home."

Spencer's heart immediately began to sink. He had misread the signs of her interest, and she was here with her boyfriend. "Oh. How, uh, how long have you two been together?"

Chloe threw her head back and laughed, a loud, genuinely happy sound. "Oh, we're not. We're roommates. We dated a few times a couple of years ago when we started working together, but there was absolutely no spark no matter how hard we tried. He's my best friend in the whole world, though. We spend most of our time together. He's over, there, see? That girl he's flirting with is actually responding, so it looks like I'm free to go whenever I want. He'll be taken care of, if you catch my drift."

Spencer followed her gaze, and Andrew was indeed successfully flirting with a girl he was playing darts with. The man glanced over to them and nodded at Chloe, who laughed again.

"Yup, he's got his own ride tonight. Which means that I am free for the evening, and it's still pretty early. Are you, uh…I know you said you were here celebrating with your co-workers, but, um…" Chloe flustered, turning a soft pink across her nose. Spencer noticed she had freckles.

"Would you like to get out of here and get some coffee?" he supplied, biting the bullet and hoping he wasn't being too forward. The answering smile he got from the redhead, though, proved that he had done exactly the right thing.

"That sounds amazing, Spencer. Let me just say goodbye to Andrew first? Then there's a great 24-hour diner across the street, they brew the best coffee in town." Chloe hopped down from her school and draped her jacket over her arm.

"Sounds perfect," the young doctor smiled, standing himself, realizing for the first time how much taller he was than her. He cleared a good 7 or 8 inches, at least.

"Yeah," Chloe breathed. "Perfect. Okay, so, um, I'll meet you out front?"

"Sure, sure. See you in a minute." He watched as Chloe practically danced over to Andrew, hugging him and pressing a kiss to his cheek, pointing over her shoulder to Spencer, who gave one of his small signature waves. Andrew laughed and waved back, kissing Chloe's forehead before turning away.

Spencer finally started walking, grabbing his jacket quickly from the table where his teammates sat, and ignored their laughter and catcalls as he made his way to the front door, shyly taking the hand Chloe offered him before stepping out into the cool night.

* * *

><p><strong>I actually work in a dentist's office that hires massage therapists to give free hand massages to the patients. It's probably the best thing ever in the history of ever.<strong>


End file.
